Alabama

Celebration period a short one for AU's Chizik

Hal Yeager/The Birmingham NewsAuburn's Gene Chizik admired the crystal Monday night, but woke up Tuesday ready to get back to work.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - On the morning after, the work began all over again.

Forget the 24-hour rule. How about 10-hour rule?

Asked Tuesday after being given more trophies than a Little League team at a May picnic - the BCS, the AP, the Grantland Rice, the MacArthur - how much time he gets to do nothing but enjoy the national title his team secured late Monday night, Auburn coach Gene Chizik didn't blink.

"It's expired," he said.

Ah, life in the SEC. Where coaches sleep with one eye open. Where there's always another recruit to pitch.

Where there's always, apparently, another national championship to be won.

This conference simply refuses to play nice and share with others. Auburn's 22-19 victory over Oregon at the University of Phoenix Stadium in nearby Glendale marked the SEC's fifth straight in the BCS championship game.

How long, again, until spring practice starts?

"You know, you savor the moment, (but) there are no days off, to be honest with you," Chizik said. "That's just kind of part of the deal. So, we'll crank it back up today and have a great memory of what happened."

A lasting one, to be sure.

Those who held the toughest sports ticket in the Internet Era won't soon forget, regardless of allegiance.

The Ducks discovered that SEC speed means you don't run, inside or outside or at the mouth. The Tigers proved to be more than Cam alone as a big-play defense and the truest and tiniest of freshmen put the Heisman Trophy winner on their backs for once while he dealt with an ailing one of his own.

"I don't want nobody to feel sorry for me because throughout this year didn't nobody feel sorry for Auburn," Newton said. "We got the last laugh. I guarantee you five or six months ago, nobody would have bet their last dollar to say that Auburn University is winning the national championship."

He's right.

The Tigers began the season a 75-1 shot to finish No. 1. But truly, the odds were much longer.

No one talked SEC West title, much less getting to Atlanta. The desert? Please.

But then the right things, "the bounces" as Chizik called them, started happening.

A dropped pass near the end zone by Mississippi State in the latter stages of a three-point win. A slight movement on a snap from center in an overtime victory against Clemson. A ball tightroping down the sideline and out of the end zone for a touchback during a historic comeback in the Iron Bowl.

In between, a quarterback who went nationwide - in more ways than one - and produced arguably the finest season on record, despite the glare of public scrutiny.

"For Cam to come in and do the things he's done this year has been awesome for this team," said irreverent linebacker Josh Bynes, whose middle name ought to be Non Sequitur.

"It has been, without a doubt, the most amazing thing I have seen from a quarterback by far in my life."

Bynes could have just as easily been talking about the entire season.

Chizik said his moment of complete enjoyment was over because that's what he's supposed to say. He didn't confirm it - because he said he didn't know it - but he's got to figure out how to do without Newton and Lombardi Award winner Nick Fairley, two juniors who are gone, baby, gone.

Then there's the matter of replacing 20-plus seniors.

But for everybody else who lives and dies with the orange and blue, you can bet they're going to continue to celebrate.